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As every worthy game designer, I have like a thousand video game ideas neatly organized in several doc files. I also went through courses, tutorials, tried several game engines (Unity, Unreal and now Godot) and spent money on assets I'm probably never gonna use.
But I feel like after years of trying I finally figured out how to work on projects besides work. I settled with Godot Engine, I learned (ha! still learning) how to code in GDScript and can finally set the scope right.
These are my notable attempts to create something on my own or with a few nice people. In chronological order, the best one is at the end!
The first project that got a working build. On Android! I remember, it was NOT a walk in the park.
RaDice wasn't actually a game but a clever framework of many possible games. I won't go into any details, because this might still be a multi-million dollar idea but the system involved Japanese kanjis, dice and a bunch of filters. We worked on this as a group of three and while it was fun, unfortunately we fell apart after some time and abandoned the project.
I was responsible for the app design and code part. At the time I knew nothing about object oriented programming but that changed slowly as I started to learn coding in C#. This was the first time I used the Unity Engine.
Another Unity project, this time I was working alone. Closer also seems like a million dollar idea but I'm sharing it anyway. You play as a luna moth who needs to "charge" itself with light but that same light also kills it if it gets too close. There are different light sources with different colors. Most lights pull in the moth so the base game mechanic is: get close enough to charge up but resist the force which tries to pull you into your demise. After a few levels, I realized that:
- this game mechanic gets boring fast
- free or cheap assets will get you so far as generic toxic waste levels
- maybe don't start with a 3D project if you are learning basically everything on the way
After Unity's subscription changing scandal I was searching for another game engine. By this time at my day job we were working with Unreal Engine so it seemed reasonable to try that one for my personal projects. It turned out pretty soon that while this engine seems OK for a full dev team it is unfortunately not for me as a sole developer.
And that's when I found out about Godot. I've decided to create my first game while following a tutorial by @tutemic. It is going to be simple but every asset and code should be made by me and it shouldn't take more than a few weeks.
The tutorial was about creating a 2D shooter, I added a twist to the original: there's a score multiplier pick up which alters the game rules making the game a bit harder. Enemies start to shoot, projectile flies diagonal, controls change, etc.
So the cleverly named TFGo (Test for Godot) was born and every goal was met. Even the sounds were recorded and processed by me. Turns out getting the scope right results in delivered projects - even if small ones at first. Who would've thought?
After TFGo was out I immediately started to work on the next Godot project. The aim was to get familiar with the UI system and I just had the perfect idea for that. The game description says:
"A short narrative UI nightmare about the greed and incompetence of a highly fictitious video game corp"
Sooo yeah, I'm not even sure if I should leave this here. Oh well, what's the worst that could happen?
A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to sign up for the upcoming Patch Notes Game Jam. My second child was just born, I had another project going on beside work so naturally I said yes!
From the whole weekend we could spend only a few hours on this one but we created a quirky little game where "error was the feature". We had a blast with Odd Number of Eyes so we continued working together.
And here we are. Our latest project: Dragging Myself Back to Hell. It has its origins in Ship It? but during the initial design phase we scrapped almost everything and realized we want a game with a skeleton who's about to platform it's way back to the grave for some untold reason.
We built a playable demo, a level where there's total darkness, your skull is on fire and you can light up torches to see where to jump next.
Currently we are working on the intro level which will teach the player all the moves and set the tone for the game. Wish us luck!
Working on our main project didn't keep us from entering another Game Jam. This time it was GMTK 2026 and the theme was: countdown. This is what we did in less than 2 days:
Broken News - You are a news anchor soon going on-air. Your only job is to read what's on the teleprompter. It's just not that easy!
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